Eagan pointed to Port Central, on the second largest continent, then tapped a raised area several hundred miles to the north. “Here. Winnie believed she had found clues in their folklore as to the origins of these people. She was heading for a place on the plateau called Ollfoss.”
“Enlarge.” The screen displayed a more detailed map. Much of the plateau was forested and contour lines showed it at an elevation of almost three thousand feet.
“Can you show me’the location?”
“I’m not a geographer. But I ’ll give you some friendly advice. Don’t go. Winnie headed that way, and she never came back.”
Marghe stared at the screen. “How long has she been missing?”
“Fourteen months.”
“She was wearing a wristcom?”
“Of course. But most places out there they’re useless: few relays, and weather interferes with everything.”
“What about the Search, Locate, and Identify Code?”
“A SLIC’s only any good if there are enough satellites out there to scan for it.
And if the Mirrors are willing to come and get you.”
Marghe absorbed all that. “Do you have any ideas what might have happened?”
“Anything could have happened.”
“You said that one of the reasons you wanted off was because the natives would just as soon kill you as say hello. Or words to that effect.”
For the first time, Eagan looked uncomfortable. “That’s not strictly true. I exaggerated, to rationalize my need to get off the damn world. They’re just…
ordinary people.”
“But—”
“No.” Eagan cut her off abruptly. “Winnie did not have to be murdered to die.
The planet itself will do that if you give it a chance. Listen to me. Do you have any idea how many different ways a person could get herself killed? For all I know, Winnie could have fallen off her horse and broken her neck the second day out. Or she could have choked on a piece of meat. Or gotten pneumonia. Or been attacked by something.” Tears, moving slowly in the low gravity, spread a wet line down each cheek. “Or maybe she just forgot to tie her horse up tightly one night and it ran off, leaving her stranded miles from anywhere. Maybe she ran out of food and starved to death. I don’t know, I don’t know.” She brushed jerkily at her cheeks. “All! know is that she went away and didn’t come back.”
“She went on her own?”
“Yes,” Eagan said. “I let her go out on her own. I told her she was crazy to try.
So I let her go on her own, and now she’s dead. And if you go, you’ll die too.”
Chapter Two
THE GIG TAXIED to a halt. Marghe stretched to relieve the adrenaline flutter of her muscles and waited for the light over her seat to show green. She stood up and fastened her disk pouch around her waist, patted the thigh pocket of her cliptogether for the vial of FN-17. Systems whined as they powered down, and from outside she heard the scrape and trundle of a ramp being maneuvered into place. The doors cracked open and leaked in light like pale grapefruit squeezings, making the artificial illumination in the gig seem suddenly thick and dim.
Jeep light.
Wind swept dark tatters across a sky rippling with cloud like a well-muscled torso, bringing with it the smell of dust and grass and a sweetness she could not identify. The gig stood on an apron of concrete roughened and rubber-streaked by countless landings. In the distance low buildings huddled against the wind.
She walked down the ramp. The concrete was hard under her soft boots. She eased her weight from one foot to another, testing her balance, feeling her muscles adjust to the difference in gravity. She sniffed, trying to equate the spicy sweet smell on the wind to something she knew: nutmeg, sun on beetle wings, the wild smell of heather.
A woman was approaching. Marghe squinted against the bright concrete light and shaded her eyes. A Mirror. For a moment the spicy breeze of Jeep became the thin air of Beaver; fear and anger flooded her system. She breathed slowly, deliberately.
This was Jeep. Jeep.
The Mirror was not wearing the mirror-visored helmet that had given Company Security members their name, but the rest of her slick, impact-resistant armor was parade-ground tidy.
“Marguerite Angelica Taishan?” Marghe nodded and the Mirror made a formal semi-bow. “I’m Officer Kahn. Acting Commander Danner assigned me to show you your quarters.” She paused and Marghe managed a nod. “It’s a bit of a walk. If the gravity bothers you, I could summon a sled.”
“Walking is fine.” She followed the Mirror, stepping over a thick cable that snaked away from the gig and down an access hole. She had nothing to carry. It made her feel vulnerable and alone.
They walked for almost twenty minutes across concrete and then scrubby yellow grass before they reached the living mods. Many of their regulation doors were carved and painted in different designs. One had been framed with handmade bricks.
She had never seen that before in a Company outpost.
Officer Kahn led her along a hard dirt path to the door of an untouched unit. “It needs keying,” she said.
Marghe obediently put her palm on the lock and recited her name and status. The door panel blinked an acknowledge, then invited her to punch in a code for additional personal security.
Inside, the air was clean and filtered. The mod followed standard Company layout: desk and chair, bed, soft floor, bathroom niche, comm port, light panels but no heat or air controls. Filtered air was piped in at a constant seventy degrees. She pulled off her disk pouch and dropped it on the desk by the comm port. She was unpacked.
“Commander Danner thought you might wish to take a few hours to rest and refresh yourself, perhaps look around Port Central.” The Mirror took a wristcom from a pocket on her belt and held it out to Marghe. “The memory already has the commander’s call code, and a few others you might need today. She asks that you contact her when you’re ready to meet.”
Marghe fastened it around her left wrist.
“Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“No. Thank you.”
Officer Kahn half turned to the door, then turned back. She cleared her throat.
“Look, it’s always rough coming down alone. I get off duty in five or six hours.
Why don’t you come along to recreation then? I’ll introduce you to some people.”
“I’m not interested,” Marghe said harshly.
The muscles around Kahn’s eyes tightened. “As you wish.” She punched the door panel harder than necessary. The door hissed open and she ducked out into the wind.
Marghe sat down on the bed. She had not handled that very well. But the last time she had seen a Mirror he had been standing by with arms folded, smiling, instead of stopping three miners from beating her unconscious.
The comm port was standard Company issue. She called up a schematic of Port Central and scanned the data.
Hannah Danner nodded dismissal to Officer Kahn and waited for her to close the office door behind her before reopening the folder stamped FOR ATTN. OF CMDR, SECURITY PERSONNEL, ONLY: MARGUERITE ANGELICA TAISHAN.
She pulled out the eight-by-ten facsimile. The color balance was wrong, giving the complexion an orangy tint. She looked at the strong face, the broad jaw, and wondered what color Taishan’s eyes really were. The picture showed them a muddy yellow. It had been taken at her recontract interview two years ago. People changed a great deal in two years.
She looked over at the picture of herself in full armor that occupied the corner of the desk. It had been taken on the day she had gotten her promotion to lieutenant and learned that she was being posted to Jeep. Her visor was pushed up and she was grinning: a younger, smooth-faced version of herself. A self who believed there was no problem too hard to solve, nothing not covered by the rule book. Sometimes she found it hard to believe only five years separated the face she saw every morning in the mirror and the face she saw in this picture.